


Side Effects May Include

by shichan_DFKink (shinchansgirl)



Category: Dresden Files - Jim Butcher
Genre: Amnesia, Complete, Kink Meme, M/M, Potions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-09
Updated: 2011-05-08
Packaged: 2017-10-19 18:34:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 10,327
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/203990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shinchansgirl/pseuds/shichan_DFKink
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Original Prompt: Harry Dresden wakes up one morning, to find himself in bed with John Marcone, with an eight-year-old mob princess daughter, less one beautiful girlfriend, an apartment, a car and most of his possessions, and plus several close friends he has never met, a job as a Warden, the position of Winter Knight, and a vampire half-brother.<br/>Would prefer the period Harry's memory dates from to be just after Storm Front.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted between Meme Round Two ( http://scribe-protra.dreamwidth.org/306.html?thread=363058#cmt363058 ) and the overflow post ( http://dresden-kink.dreamwidth.org/1001.html?thread=76521#cmt76521 ).

The arm around my waist tightened as I slowly began to wake up. It was a pleasant feeling; no monsters, no drug-dealing warlocks, and no potential jail time in my future.

There was also the pleasant memory of the Doom being lifted. It was hard to believe that I was finally free of that; hell, it was hard to believe Morgan had pulled me out of a burning building and given me CPR before telling me that.

Susan was watching me, I could tell. The way the arm rested on my belly wasn’t quite relaxed, more possessive, and her breathing was too fast for sleep. She seemed… weightier than before. The bed dipped more in her direction than mine, and her arm was thicker, heavier, but I had no doubt it was her. After all, no one else would be in my bed, would they? Not in my bed holding me like a lover, and watching me sleep.

Those who broke into my apartment other than Susan – and she didn’t need to break in – were usually trying to kill me. Anyone else tried knocking first.

But then I heard a chuckle too deep to be female and felt the brush of morning stubble when a chin brushed against my neck and I woke up _real_ fast, spinning out of my bed and sending a wave of air back against – was that really Gentleman Johnny Marcone?

I wasn’t in my apartment, that was clear the moment I looked around. A king-sized bed, soft lamps and unlit candles spread throughout the room, cheery blue walls occasionally decorated with tapestries and decorative throws, and a naked Marcone watching me warily. He’d grunted with the blast of air, knocking an elbow on the wall, but there hadn’t been enough power in the spell to send him farther.

“Harry?” he asked, softly. “What’s wrong?”

“Are you _insane_?” I asked, trying to ignore the fact that yeah, I was naked too, and I’d been naked in bed with Marcone. “Why am I here?”

Now he just looked confused. “You live here.”

I laughed at that. “You must have hit your head on a rock or something, because I don’t live here. I live by myself in a nice, cozy apartment. I’ve never even seen this place before.”

The confusion shifted to concern. “I’d ask if you were playing with me,” he ventured, “but you look a little too… flushed. Why don’t you calm down a bit and we’ll both get dressed before discussing things. We wouldn’t want to alarm Maggie.”

“Who’s Maggie?”

He nodded, which was somewhat disturbing. He was understanding things I wasn’t, when all I could really think was _Hell’s Bells, what’s happened now?_

“Maggie is our daughter,” he said. “Yours, by blood. Come now, Harry, get dressed. Second drawer.”

“You seem to be taking this awfully calmly, for a mafia don who just woke up naked with a wizard,” I said as he climbed off the bed, not minding the fact that he was naked at all – of course, the view wasn’t _entirely_ bad. I could see how, after a few of Mac’s ales and a few magic spikes, I would have fallen in bed with him.

Wouldn’t have mistaken him for Susan, that’s for sure.

“I had… a bit of warning,” he admitted. “You informed me yesterday that one of the side-effects to a potion you were testing could result in temporary memory loss.”

“What potion?” Mixing potions and alcohol was dangerous – I should have known better than that, at the very least.

“A memory potion,” Marcone answered. “You needed to look at something again, more closely, for what you called ‘personal reasons’. You wouldn’t elaborate further, but said that you might not remember a few things for the next day or three, depending on how much the potion depleted with sunrise.”

That… made sense, actually. Maybe. I’d have to talk to Bob about it to be sure; if I was making potions, he would know about it anyways. It would be easy to confirm Marcone’s story.

“Do you want to get dressed now, or should we go back to bed?” he asked. “Maggie won’t be up for another hour at least, and the door is locked.”

“You lock the kids out of the bedroom?” I asked, confused and hurt by that for some reason.

He shook his head. “It usually isn’t, but even so. She’s eight, Harry, and if she really needs in she has a key. Maggie knows not to come in when the door’s locked unless it’s an emergency. She wears the key on her shield bracelet. The one you made her.” He was lighting the candles with a match, and shook out one that had burned down nearly to his fingers. “You know, this would go much faster if you did the lighting.”

I did, almost without thought, and the wicks flared almost dangerously high for a moment before settling. It surprised me – I hadn’t thought I’d put that much power into it – but Marcone just looked thoughtful.

Well, I wasn’t going to just stand around and let the guy bully me into doing magic tricks for him, so I started raiding drawers and pulling out clothes. I found boxers and jeans that fit, though the shirt was a bit big on me overall. Marcone was smiling as I searched through things, sitting back down on the edge of the bed and not bothering to dress himself. Leaving himself bare, open – vulnerable.

I think that was the first thing that set me off, told me that I missing something big. Gentleman Johnny Marcone was a crime lord, a mob boss, mafia don – they all amounted to the same thing in my head, and that was _paranoid_. Almost as paranoid as I was sometimes, and sometimes worse. Men like that didn’t sit around without a weapon while the flavor of the night got dressed, and usually didn’t go unarmed even when the mistress of the year was splayed out beneath him. There was always a weapon within reach.

Marcone, though, very clearly didn’t have anything and even though I had hit him hard enough to hurt at least some, he wasn’t calling for guards or looking for a way to protect himself. He looked concerned, or at least he was frowning in a close proximity to it.

That was probably why I didn’t leave. That was probably why I folded myself down on the floor and said, simply, “Explain.”

He raised a single eyebrow – and how someone can do that and not look like some cheesy movie actor, I’ll never know, but he did it – and asked: “Explain what?”

I looked around at the single dresser, single closet, single locked door, single _bed_ , large open windows, soft cloths on the walls, and tried to take it all in. “Everything. Just tell me everything.”


	2. Chapter 2

Marcone started at the beginning, when his men showed me into his car after Tommy Tomm’s death, and carefully retold events I’d already known had happened. I didn’t interrupt; I’d asked him to tell me everything.

After that, some of the details got blurry. Marcone could only tell me so much; I was apparently allies with someone named Thomas, whom Marcone knew beyond a doubt was a White Court vampire, but he couldn’t tell me why. It was not a secret I’d shared with him, and I’d told him it wasn’t really my secret to tell – but apparently I’d dated Thomas for a while, and Thomas had given something of a telling-off to Marcone when I’d started dating Marcone.

I had a dog. Mouse. Who was huge and smart and apparently absolutely irreplaceable.

I had a daughter. Maggie. I apparently didn’t like to talk about her mother, but Marcone suspected it was Susan. I still remembered her, and yeah, there had been opportunity.

Something in Marcone’s voice told me that he, at the very least, believed what he was saying. He believed Maggie was our daughter. He believed I’d become a Warden. He believed I’d friended a White Court vampire. He believed Bianca was dead. He believed I’d saved him from werewolves and fallen angels alike. Some of it held truth I could recognize – I _was_ friends with Michael Carpenter, and he did have a wife named Charity. I didn’t remember her being pregnant, though, and I certainly didn’t remember them naming a kid after me. Charity hated me too much for that.

But he could have researched my relationships with some people to help build this – this fantasy, or whatever it was. That he thought it was true and believed it did not necessarily mean that it _was_ true.

An alarm went off a few moments after he finished, and Marcone calmly dressed himself in a pair of boxers, sweatpants, and a loose robe before unlocking the door. I stood up as he did so, keeping him in my sight and uncertain where to move next. If this was a fantasy he believed in, and I was somehow a part of it, then the rest of the outside world wouldn’t fit in. There wouldn’t be a Maggie out there, Hendricks would look indulgent but stern, and a quick call to Murphy would confirm that the last case we’d worked on had been about the Three-Eye drug and Victor Sells. The other possibility was that Marcone was telling the truth, that I had lived out all those years and now couldn’t remember them.

“Do you need to talk to Bob?” Marcone asked.

“You know about Bob?” I asked, with maybe just a hint of panic. I’d worked so hard to hide him – if anyone on the Council knew, then both Bob and I would be screwed. And not in a good way.

“I know he is someone you consult with,” Marcone answered, “I’ve never seen or spoken to him personally. You hinted that the situation might be delicate.”

“I certainly don’t trust you with much as far as magic goes, do I?” I asked.

“You don’t trust anyone much. You trust me more than others, but that doesn’t mean you welcome sharing information with open arms. We’ve worked on mutual agreement for the past several years that, unless I need to know, you don’t tell me anything about magic that can cause potential harm to myself, yourself, or others, and I give you the same courtesy about my work. It allows us to focus more on taking care of Maggie and taking care of each other.”

“I don’t need someone to take care of me.”

“You may not require it, but it appears to simplified things for you – and made you happier, unless I miss my guess.”

There was the tiniest of knocks on the door, and then it opened to reveal a waist-high little girl with curls in her brown hair, a nightgown down to her knees with TinkerBell on the front, and tiny pink princess slippers. “Daddy?” she asked. “Papa?”

Marcone went to her immediately. “Daddy’s not feeling well today, sweetheart,” he said, lifting her up.

She looked at Harry suspiciously. “He doesn’t look sick,” she announced. “Maybe he’s faking.”

“Margaret Dresden, you know better,” Marcone scolded. The child squirmed in his arms.

“But Daddy’s supposed to make us _pancakes_ today. I don’t want him to be sick.”

“Tell you what,” I said, unable to tear my gaze away from the pout on the tiny pink lips that reminded me of Susan – definitely her child. Definitely. “I don’t think you’ll catch what I’ve got, so I’ll go ahead and make pancakes, but then I have to…” I tried to think of a way to explain ‘figure things out’ without freaking out a kid that might actually be mine. “Have to go talk to people to find out if I can get better.”

That seemed to satisfy her, as she squealed – actually squealed – and flung herself out of Marcone’s arms to latch herself around my waist. Marcone had to be a lot stronger than I thought, if he was able to pick her up and hold her so easily. She was eight, not three – she had a few more pounds and the awkwardness of being bigger about her. “Thank you, Daddy!” she almost shouted, and then took my hand and started pulling me to the kitchen. “Come on – I saw Mister Hendricks bring in the stuff last night. He got chocolate chips and everything. And chocolate _milk_! I can have some right?”

“Sure,” I answered, a bit breathlessly, and swallowed. She wasn’t like the eight-year-old I’d been, with an uncertain future and less to be happy about. She was a ball of energy waiting to explode.

Marcone followed behind us a bit more leisurely, watching us with a smile on his face. And I knew why, too – I didn’t trust Marcone enough to leave him alone with a young child, so while I _would_ be talking to Bob and calling up Murphy (and maybe Michael), I wouldn’t be going that far from him and Maggie.

And had she just said that Cujo had gone _grocery shopping_ for us?

I tossed out ideas of living in Marcone’s fantasy world, and started entertaining ideas of either actually losing my memory as Marcone described or waking up in an alternate reality. Because that thought surely belonged in the Twilight Zone.


	3. Chapter 3

“So it’s true, then?” I asked, feeling my shoulders sag. “I gave in?”

“He had to work hard for it,” Bob teased. “You weren’t exactly a blushing maiden, falling helplessly into his arms. Though I suggested it a few times. It would have made things easier.”

“What was I looking for?” I didn’t know if I’d found it, or what I’d discovered, but it might help me to figure out how to undo things.”

“Can’t tell you.”

“Why not?”

“You ordered me not to until something very specific happened, and added that not even another order from you could change that. You ordered me to forget it if I had to in order to keep you from prying.”

Stars. That either meant it was something really bad, or it was something I would think was bad without all the history I couldn’t remember. “Okay, then what can we do to reverse what’s happened? Do we even know what happened?”

Bob’s lighted eyes flickered for a moment. “I could look and see, if you want. We weren’t really sure what would happen, only that it would affect your memory.”

Now I really wanted to know what I had thought I was doing – what I had thought was worth the risk. I had a headache that wasn’t easing, as I tried to find the answers and they just weren’t there. “Surface only,” I told him. “Don’t go digging, and don’t mess with anything. With those restrictions, you have my permission to look.”

It was awkward for a moment, as the silence overtook us. It made me edgy, because I knew Bob was looking at me with something similar to the Sight, and not quite the same. He would always remember what I looked like at this moment, but it wasn’t a product of his sight – just of what he was.

“It’s not pretty, boss.”

“I know. Just tell me.”

He hesitated anyways, then went on: “You haven’t forgotten anything.”

I waited. “Wait, if I haven’t forgotten anything, then what’s going on? Is Marcone _adding_ memories? Where’d Maggie come from?”

“No, his memories are accurate, or as accurate as a mortal’s can be anyways. And Maggie’s your daughter. The potion did mess with your head, but it didn’t make you forget, it just… rearranged things.”

“I don’t understand.”

“It’s like… rearranging the bookshelves. Starting with the most recent memories, it took them and put them somewhere else. So when you go to look for them where they’re supposed to be, you come up blank.”

That wasn’t what I expected. “You’re kidding, right?”

“When you got up this morning, what happened?”

“Well, I thought I was with Susan. Then it wasn’t. And Marcone explained things to me, and I thought he was crazy.”

“You thought he was crazy, and you left him alone with a little girl just down the hall.”

I had. I couldn’t deny it. “He’s just down the hall.”

“But logically you know how much damage he can do before you hear anything – before they even begin making enough noise to be suspicious.”

“Are you trying to tell me I shouldn’t have?”

“I’m trying to tell you that, on some level, you know you should trust him. You didn’t kill him, you listened to what he had to say. You didn’t rush Maggie out of the house and head to your old apartment, you fixed her and John breakfast then came to see me in the room John had told you was your at-home lab. For all you knew, this could have been a wizard’s cage, and this whole set up a carefully set up trap.”

Well, when he put it that way. I wasn’t acting like Marcone was a stranger, or like a crime lord, or someone to be wary of. I’d fixed him pancakes along with Maggie, putting blueberries in his without a second thought. What had he done after that?

 _“My favorite. Thank you, Harry.”_

 _“Uhh…”_

 _“Daddy! You’re supposed to tell Papa ‘you’re welcome’!” Maggie had interrupted._

I’d repeated her blindly, and taken a few Tylenol before joining them at the table. I’d known how he wanted breakfast – even poured his coffee for him – and fixed it.

“Headaches?” Bob asked.

I nodded.

“That would be the disconnect. Knowing something should be there, remembering something being there, but not knowing what. And then the reverse as well, finding something when there should be nothing. They’ll probably linger for a while,” his voice was quiet as he spoke.

“How long until the potion fades?” I asked.

He didn’t answer.

“How _long_?”

“The potion’s gone, Boss. I’m sorry.”


	4. Chapter 4

“Wait.” I took a breath, counted to ten, and said again: “Wait. I don’t have my memories back yet.”

“Well, no,” Bob answered. He still sounded – regretful, I’d guess you say, but not overly so. Not overly concerned.

“If the potion is gone, shouldn’t my memory be back?”

The jaw chattered a bit, Bob’s version of a motherly tut-tut. “You’re mixing up the effect and the aftermath,” he said. “You end a rain spell and the rain stops, but you still have to deal with the soggy carpets.”

Great. First my mind was a disorganized bookshelf and next it was soggy carpets. It didn’t feel like I was moving up in the world. “But it can be fixed, right?”

He hesitated. “Yes and no.”

“I’m in no mood for bargaining,” I told him flatly. “Can it, or can it not be fixed? And no more metaphors.”

He seemed to sulk for a moment. “You have to re-remember everything. Like I said before, the potion went through and rearranged your memories. There still _there_ , just not where you left them. So you have to find them. Once you find them, it should be like they were never gone, but the trick is finding them. You can only find bits and pieces at a time; it’s not like they’re all going to slam into you at once. You can’t drink a potion and get it all back, you have to remember what it was like to be you.”

That meant a lot of self-reflection, meditation, and quiet. All things I hated, some more than others. Stars.

“And the headaches?”

“Will get worse when you get closer to a memory, I’d imagine. Full-out migraines for the ones buried really deep, or for things you don’t particularly want to remember.”

Because the potion had to be looking for something while scrambling through my brain. What I didn’t want to see I would have shoved into far deeper corners as I sifting through things, and those would be more difficult to find than the ones I’d just pushed briefly aside. The feeling of trust for Marcone, for example, was probably lingering closer to the surface than any fights I would have had with him over his work.

Stars, I didn’t even know if he was a full-time crime lord anymore. Maybe he’d retired, or gone part-time, or turned legal.

I didn’t even know if I was still in _Chicago_.

No. No, I was still in my city. I would have felt that change. The magic of the city changes over time, growing and falling and twisting to fit the needs of the people, but it still felt the same despite the changes. Still felt like the windy city, still felt like the seedy underground, still felt like Mac’s ale and cold winter nights and loud cars and warm people and guns and drugs and food and love and _life_. I knew where I was, relatively speaking.

“There are some things that you always remember,” I said, when I’d calmed a bit. “You told me that. You said that there are some things that you simply can’t forget, because it’s imprinted on your mind.”

Somehow, Bob managed a move that resembled a nod.

“Then those I should remember. Using my Sight, any soulgazes, any instance where what I saw would be burned into my memory couldn’t be forgotten, and therefore shouldn’t have been affected by the spell.”

“Theoretically.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, you’ll still remember them, but it might have changed how you perceive the memories. Because you don’t remember what led up to them, or the circumstances surrounding them, you might see the memories in a different way.”

It made sense. It wouldn’t change the memory itself – not the image, or the sound, or the feel of it – but the reaction to it might be different.

“That’s a chance I have to take,” I finally said. “I need to remember something.” If I didn’t then this would feel too surreal, too much like the plot of one of Bob’s books.

I took a seat on the floor in the middle of a medium-sized circle I’d apparently had laid down on the floor. It wasn’t big enough for me to lay across – maybe four feet circumference – but it didn’t really matter. I wasn’t closing the circle anyways. I closed my eyes and tried to meditate.

 _The first thing I saw was Mickey, snarling and screaming in one view and whimpering and crying in another. Two ghost images of the same person laid overtop of one another, both equally true. I didn’t know if this was two memories playing out at the same time or one memory with the oddity of wizard Sight thrown in, but it chilled me. Wrapped around one body was something like a rope of barbed wire. It was digging into his skin on both images, but while one body bled out and screamed in pain the other snarled in anger and lashed out at anything that came near._

 _Two sides to the same coin. Action and root cause._

 _He was in so much pain, it was hard to keep myself steady. I didn’t realize it wasn’t necessary until I noticed my body was moving. I was freeing him from the wire and I could feel the pain that was shooting through me as I did my best to cause as little pain to the other man as possible. I wanted to stop, but I couldn’t wrench myself away. I wanted to find another way, one that wouldn’t leave me in pain and him so scarred, but by body kept moving._

 _I had to do this. Had had to. I saw dead cats and birds in a flash, cops I didn’t recognize, Murphy looking drawn-out and tired, and then I was pulling the wire again. Pulling and pulling and pulling, while Mickey laid there watching me, tears warm on his face. Relieved and hopeful. Grateful._

I pulled myself away in time to realize I was laying on the floor crying, and then the darkness was such a welcome reprieve that I didn’t fight it.


	5. Chapter 5

I woke up laying on a bed, a damp cloth being brushed lightly across my face. It reminded me of when I was little, sick, and my father had taken care of me. Before Eb, before Justin, before the orphanage and real magic and everything else. Just _before_.

It wasn’t an easy task to open my eyes, mostly because I wanted – just a little bit – to pretend that I was five again and everything was okay. I briefly entertained the notion that I could actually turn myself five again, and then reverse it, and then maybe everything would fix itself.

Yeah, right. And Bob’s moral compass is pointed straight towards heaven.

The cloth left for a moment, and when the air cooled my face I gave in and let my eyes drift open. Marcone was to my right, and I was tucked neatly into bed. Maggie was no where to be seen, but there was a giant scruffy dog in the bed, looking worried and whining a bit.

“You don’t look like a mouse,” I told him.

The dog’s tail wagged so hard it might have flown off, if it wasn’t attached, and his massive paw landed on my belly with much more gentle care and tenderness than I would have given him credit for. He was either much too smart or too used to seeing me like this. I was hoping he was the ‘too smart’ bit.

He also looked vaguely familiar, and it took me a moment to realize why. “You’re a Foo Dog.”

“Harry?”

I flinched a bit at Marcone’s voice, and saw him wince out of the corner of my eye. That set off a series of warning bells in my head and I managed to say “not so loud, please” soon enough that he hopefully connected it to my reaction. “Head still hurts,” I explained. “Migraine.”

“I didn’t realize they were a side effect as well,” he said, softer, his hand on my arm.

“Neither did I.” I debated telling him for a moment what had happened, that it might be a long time before I remembered things and that I might never really get my full memory back – how would I know if I had or not? – but the moment passed too quickly, and he was speaking again before I could get up the courage to tell him.

“Is there anything you can take?”

“No,” I said, holding a hand out to the dog – Mouse. “Nothing that would help, at least.” Mouse pressed his wet nose into my hand for a moment, then obligingly moved so that I could scratch behind his ears. “Is this guy really my dog?”

“Yes,” Marcone answered. “Though I’ve never heard you call him a Foo Dog before.”

I hesitated for a moment, but then gave up holding it in. Everything I was about to tell him could be found in books, anyways, so I wasn’t revealing anything, and I’d already let slip what the animal was. “Foo dogs are temple guardians. Sort of like the statues you see outside the Chinese restaurant a few blocks away from my office. Except a lot more real and smarter than the average dog.”

It took a few moments for him to find the right place. “You mean those garishly painted ceramic replicas?”

“Yeah.”

He looked at Mouse, who appeared to be lost in the pleasure of having his ear scratched. But I could see one eye barely open and watching. “Forgive me for saying this,” Marcone told Mouse, “but thank God you’re not colored the same. It’d be difficult to pass a red and gold dog off as normal, to say the least.”

Mouse wagged his tail, but that could have been because I had switched to under his chin and had found a good spot.

“Where’s Maggie?” I finally asked.

“She had a play date with the Carpenters this morning. When I found you, I made certain you didn’t require immediate attention and then had Hendricks drive her there. She was disappointed we couldn’t join her, and Charity will, no doubt, be cross. But she understands that you aren’t feeling well and I’ve asked her to pass the message along.”

“She didn’t seem to understand this morning.”

“You get sick only very rarely,” he explained. “Typically, when you tell her you aren’t feeling well it’s because you’re –“ he hesitated a bit, and looked down at his hands, which were still on the arm that wasn’t occupied by massive dog “ – sore.”

I frowned for a moment. “I tell her I’m sick when I’m mad at you?” I asked, confused for a moment. I hadn’t lost control of my magic like that for years, since Eb had taken me in. And even then, I rarely had done serious harm to anyone except – well, except when I had. Unless he meant sore in a physical way – and the way we’d gotten up this morning, with him in his robe, us together in the bedroom – “Oh. You mean – oh.”

I knew I was red, but he didn’t even blush.

“I don’t actually remember that.”

He sighed. “I know.” He brought my hand up and kissed it. “You will, though.”

And I just couldn’t tell him that, well, there was a chance that I wouldn’t find whatever memory he was thinking of. Instead I reached across myself – I’d stopped scratching Mouse a while ago, and he thankfully moved out of the way – and touched Marcone’s arm. “Show me,” I told him.

“Harry?”

I pulled him down for a kiss, and he followed my lead gracefully. Despite my attempts, however, he kept it mostly chaste and pulled away after a few moments.

“You have no idea what you do to me, do you?” he asked. “Do you even know how afraid I was when I saw you lying there? You frightened me near to death; I’m certain I felt my heart stop. And now you have me talking like some romance novel hero, and it’s all true. Damnit, Harry, you’re still in pain.”

I could hear the silent “you don’t remember” that he tactfully didn’t say. It didn’t matter, though; I heard it anyways. I could see him slowly pulling his mask back, the calm collected tiger I knew and not the man I’d spent the morning trying – and failing – to figure out.

Damn. I’d been starting to like this new guy.

“You need rest,” he said. “Try to sleep. I’ll order in some food for later, and find a few books in our library you might like to re-read when you wake up.”

I almost asked him to stay.

Almost.


	6. Chapter 6

After a brief nap – and lunch – I slipped into my lab again to talk to Bob.

“I can’t do this,” I told him, once the lights had brightened enough in his eyes that I was certain he was fully awake. “I can’t go around not remembering.”

“What’d you see?” Bob asked. “Was it kinky? You were moaning, you know. Gives a spirit shivers.”

“Wrong kind of moaning,” I told him, and if my voice was a bit sharp he pretended not to notice. “I saw Mickey, but he was older and – and in pain.”

“The Nightmare,” Bob said, a bit of curiosity in his voice. “Interesting.”

“What’s a Nightmare? Well, besides the obvious.”

“Technically, there are two kinds of nightmares – excluding this one. There are bad dreams, which mortals call nightmares, and the actual creature called a nightmare. Magical horse-like creatures, black as night, always female, and right nasty pieces of work. This thing you called a ‘Nightmare’ because that’s what it did – it gave you the vanilla nightmares.”

“That was more than a dream.”

“Well, yes, it was. It ate a good chunk of your magic at one point too.”

I felt my jaw drop a little. “And I did what? Let it?”

“Not really; it ate it in a dream, which was a little more real than the vanilla version.”

I sighed, and leaned back against the table. “I really can’t do this.” My head was hurting already – subconsciously searching for memories, maybe? Or maybe not – and we hadn’t even gotten into the details of one event yet. “Look, it’s obvious we don’t have the time or the capability to go through each memory one by one and have it retold to me, and I can’t pass out on the floor every time one hits me, either, or I’ll end up dead when someone decides it’s time to get rid of the wizard.” There was too much to remember, and too many things that I might forget that no one could tell me – like why I’d taken the potion in the first place.

Well, I was an investigator. It was time to investigate.

* * *

Marcone was first on my list, since he was the only one I actually had contact with who knew what had happened and wasn’t a spirit inhabiting a skull and withholding information. “What happened with Victor Sells?” I asked him, being sure to stay only on the threshold of his office. It wasn’t a threshold like the threshold to a home, but somehow I felt more grounded with him a good distance away from me in this setting.

I had a feeling we got up to more than just work in this office – or maybe I should say a different kind of work – and it was giving me an itch in places I wasn’t sure I was comfortable having an itch.

“I thought you remembered that much,” he asked.

“So what?”

Marcone didn’t look offended at my non-answer. He just smiled a little indulgently and answered. Smug bastard. “You were found outside the burning lake house owned by Mister Victor Sells approximately twenty minutes after the fire was believed to have been started, and only five minutes after police arrived on the scene. You were free of serious burns, but unconscious. After the fire was put out, Mister Sells remains were discovered in the building along with a substantial amount of the three-eye drug, which had been made unusable by the fire. It was concluded that he had been producing the drug. The case was closed. Mrs. Sells moved shortly after, I believe to a small town in Kentucky.”

I tried to picture the woman I had seen in Kentucky. It wasn’t working very well. Monica had reminded me of PTO meetings and cupcakes, a city mom who went to the meetings to listen to chatter and not participate, who liked having people around but not talking to them. She was nervous but organized – the definition of a city girl.

But they did have cities in Kentucky, and even if they weren’t safer, you didn’t hear about them as much on the news. No one would connect her with the Chicago Three-Eye Producer.

“Why wasn’t I charged with anything?”

He hesitated a moment. “Why would you be?”

“I was considered a suspect for a considerable amount of time during that case. I had to escape police custody to solve it, because it was very literally life or death for me. I can still smell the smoke, Marcone – I feel like I was just there last week, choking on fire and willing my gun not to misfire. I remember the ambulance, getting into it, but not once did the police approach me. If I asked Murphy, would my name even show on the report?”

I’d hit on something, I knew it. He was debating something silently.

“Have you told me before?”

He stood, then, and ushered me out of the office. “This isn’t a discussion for idle chat,” he said. “And the answer is no. Let’s get a bit more comfortable first.” He hesitated again. “Are you certain you don’t want to wait for your memory to return?”

“Why don’t you want to tell me?” His hand was warm on my back – warm and gentle.

“I don’t want you upset,” he finally said, quiet, as if he didn’t want to say it. “You were not known for being very accepting of my help during the period you remember.”

I had a feeling I was never very accepting of his help, but something in my gut told me the reasons had changed over time. That changes happened when you saved each other from certain death over and over again.

And that thought made me a bit dizzy, because I didn’t remember saving Marcone from death – didn’t remember facing death myself that often – but I knew, somehow, that I had. That I even kept count somewhere, possibly through Bob.

John’s arm held me steady as I swayed a bit, and I let my forehead rest against his shoulder. I was a bit too tall for it to be completely relaxed and comfortable, but it was enough to let me get my feet under me again.

“Sorry,” I said, and for some reason that caught in my throat, choked me up.

“Let’s get you to bed,” John offered. “You don’t sleep enough anymore.”

It felt like something he’d said a thousand times before, something I had an automatic response for – teasing, and comforting, and familiar – but when I opened my mouth nothing came out, and that disappointed mask fell over his face again. “Come on,” he said. “Before you fall again.”

I let him lead me, feeling strangely disappointed in myself as well.


	7. Chapter 7

By the time sunset had come and gone, I’d helped tuck Maggie into bed (“yes, still sick”) and the headache had eased to only a dull ache. While there was still quite a lot I didn’t remember - _years_ worth, apparently – something else had become apparent to me throughout the day.

John cared for me.

I couldn’t say love just yet, because love was something that came with time spent together and knowledge of each other. I just didn’t have that with him. Not anymore, anyways. But I knew he cared for me and he cared for my daughter and he was protecting us from a lot by simply believing in us as a family.

We had a threshold. For once, I was actually a part of a strong threshold that would last.

I followed John into the bedroom, but it didn’t look like he’d be staying. He was gathering up the essentials – sweatpants, a shirt to sleep in, a light book – and closing drawers as he went.

I closed the door and locked it.

“Harry?” he asked, turning towards me.

“I want you to make love to me.”

He looked – disappointed was the closest word I could think of. “Another theory?”

“Sex is the best medicine?” I quipped.

The look he gave me could have melted ice if he’d known how to channel that power.

“I’m not entirely kidding. There is power in sex, and more in the actual act of consummating feelings with a partner you care for and who cares for you. Not exactly why I’m asking, though.”

“Then why are you asking?”

I leaned back against the door. “I was kind of hoping you would just go for the sex and not ask any questions about that. Really, who says no to sex?”

“You do. Frequently,” John answered.

“Really?” It was more surprising that he would admit to it than that I would say no – but then again, maybe not. If he was having as much difficulty with my memory loss as I was, then he might want me to remember.

“About as often as I do,” John said. “We aren’t both ready and willing all the time, and we aren’t teenagers anymore. Sometimes you just aren’t in the mood – or you have somewhere to be. Or we’re mad at each other. Usually we make up for it later.”

Usually. Not always. Huh. “Well, I’m not saying no right now.”

“But I am. For the moment. Why are you asking for this?”

I really didn’t want to answer that, because I wasn’t fully certain of that answer myself. But something in me told me that it was the right thing to do and I liked to pride myself on following my gut.

It’s kept me alive a few times. Would have kept me alive better if I’d followed it more, sometimes, too.

“Can I just say that I think I need to?” I asked, not looking him in the eye. I could – I remembered that soulgaze clearly – but he had the upper hand here and I didn’t want him to see my uncertainty, see any hint that this might be a bad idea. Because I really wanted him to say yes. It was odd, to say the least. I wasn’t feeling particularly lusty, and he was lacking most of the curves that I was used to, but I wanted him to want me.

I could say something cheesy - that the thought of it was shooting straight to my groin, that my loins were burning with idea that he desired me, or that the butterflies in my stomach were fluttering with nerves over his weighty stare. All would have been lies, to an extent.

I just wanted. Simple as that. And I had no idea where the feeling came from, but I knew it was there.

“I need more than that,” he told me.

The disappointment was like a stab in the gut when I hadn’t even known he’d been holding a knife. It _hurt_ that he was saying no.

I turned around and wrenched the door open, completely tearing the lock apart, and abandoned John to get to Maggie’s room. Aside from calling my name, John didn’t try to stop me and that hurt _more_. By the time I’d packed a few of her clothes and gathered a sleepy Maggie with her T-Rex stuffed doll into my arms, I was fighting back tears. When I had to dodge Marcone’s men at the gate – one reading a magazine, one laughing at a show on tv while eating pizza – the hurt was starting to roll into anger. I was the one with the memory loss, yes, but I was also the only expert on my situation. When I said I needed something, he should have simply _gave it to me_ , no questions asked.

But even what I knew of John Marcone said that he didn’t work like that. And damnit, I’d left Bob behind but it was too late to go back now. Not with Maggie in my arms. I’d fetch him later, along with my staff and blasting rod, once I’d gotten Maggie safe and got some sleep.

About half a mile from Marcone’s house I realized I had no idea where to go, and no way to get anywhere except on foot. No one I knew lived on this side of town, certainly.

But there was a police car not far away. When I flagged him down, he knew who I was. He offered to take me ‘home.’ I just asked him to call Murphy.

Twenty minutes later, she picked us up. She didn’t say anything, didn’t ask anything.

I wasn’t sure what I would have told her if she did.


	8. Chapter 8

Unfortunately for me, Murphy’s silence only lasted until Maggie was safely tucked into bed and we were both settled down at the kitchen table with a cup of warm tea. There hadn’t been any asking involved; she’d made it clear that I was going into the kitchen and having something warm to drink when she’d herded me down the hallway the moment Maggie’s door was shut.

“What happened?” she asked simply.

“Can’t this wait?” I asked. “Please, Murphy.”

That caused her stare to harden. “I need to know if something’s going to attempt to knock down my door in the next twelve hours,” she said, her voice that stern tone she used when criminals weren’t talking the way she wanted them to. “Mortal or otherwise, trouble chases you. I’d rather not have the Baron calling foul because I’d kidnapped his partner.”

“The Baron?”

The gun was out and in my face in a matter of moments. “Who are you and what have you done to Harry Dresden?”

“It’s me. Really. I had – an accident. Temporary memory loss that turned out to be worse than I apparently predicted.”

“How bad?”

“Uh, well, as far as I remember last week you were trying to arrest me for killing Tommy Tomm and Jennifer Stanton?”

“That was nine years ago.”

That – couldn’t be a coincidence. “You serious? Nine years?”

The gun didn’t waver. “Or fairly close.”

I’d bet good money it was to the day – or had been, last night. “Of course. It wasn’t an event – three times three would be nine years, magic works in threes – I must’ve strengthened the potion somehow.”

“You still haven’t proven to me that you are Harry Dresden.”

I frowned. “I – I guess you could call Marcone, he was there when I woke up. But I’d really prefer it if he didn’t know I was here, and you calling would be a dead give away.”

“Funny. The one person you say can prove you are who you are is the one person you say I shouldn’t call. Luckily enough, I know a few other people.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Jared’s coming over.”

Somehow, I think she noticed that she hadn’t revealed the secret of life to me, and her grip on the gun tightened. “You had better be Harry or, God help me, I’m going to strangle the real one when I find him.”

“Aw, Murph, I didn’t know you cared that much.”

“She doesn’t,” someone else said – a man with a young girl trailing after him in her pajamas. “She hates it when you call her in the middle of the night attempting to save the world.”

“So it’s him?” Murphy asked.

“It’s him. And you need another vacation.”

“Hello, Harry,” the little girl said, walking over to me and climbing into my lap. “You haven’t written anything in a few days. Did the experiment not go as planned?”

“What experiment?” I asked, ignoring the fact that, apparently, I was willing to share my secrets with a child. She wasn’t exactly a young child – maybe around nine or ten, I was guessing – but she was small.

“The memory potion you were working on. So you could remember more of your time with John. According to your notes, you were concerned that you had forgotten something important about your relationship – it wasn’t an anniversary, I think, since you managed to write most of those down trying to determine what you were forgetting.”

“And I just share my notes with you?”

She gave me an odd look. “Harry, your notes are _written_.”

I looked up at Murphy, as if she might be able to explain this strange child. She was watching me, but the man with her – he was _watching_ me. It wasn’t the wizard’s Sight, I knew that much, but something about his intense gaze tipped me off that he was looking deeper. “Rearranging an aura like that is messy, Dresden,” he said. “You’re lucky you didn’t kill yourself.”

“He wouldn’t have,” the kid spoke up. “The potion wasn’t that invasive – the damage is self-inflicted, but more out of carelessness and ignorance than intention, I believe.”

I was being defended by a kid – life was seriously going downhill for me. “I have no idea who you people are, but you really need to get better hobbies.”

Murphy made the introductions with a long-suffering sigh. “This is Jared Kincaid, a mercenary and a Hellhound. He is currently hired primarily for the protection of the Archive – you named her Ivy, when you first met.”

I looked down at the kid. “I named you too?”

She giggled, curling up into me. When I looked up again, the Hellhound was smiling. “She’s a bit more human when you’re around,” he said. “That hasn’t changed.”

“I was told the memories were still there, only I don’t know where they are in my mind anymore,” I admitted. “The one time I tried to force myself to remember, I passed out.” For some reason, I knew I could trust these people just as much as I could trust Murphy.

“I’m no good with figuring mind-magic out once it’s been done,” Kincaid admitted. “But you know a few people who are, I’d wager.”

“Except I can’t remember them anymore.”

“John’s on it,” Ivy said, yawning.

“You’re supposed to be neutral,” Kincaid growled.

“I am,” she answered. “I’m not speaking to a warden or a wizard of the White Council – he doesn’t remember where he stands with those, or what his place is anymore. He’s also not one of the Baron’s subjects, since he doesn’t remember that either. He is not allied with Winter or Summer, or with the Huntsmen. I am also not giving him any information which could be beneficial to any member of the Accords that he could not easily gain access to himself or that Miss Murphy could not as easily obtain – she would have likely called John anyways in a few moments, just to keep him appraised of the situation, and gotten an update on his progress as well, since they are both working towards helping Harry.”

“And earlier?”

“It is knowledge he already knows. Is it considered allying myself to Winter if I tell a snow-sprite that snow is cold? He already knows this; I have not revealed anything new to him.”

I let my arms fall around her slightly. “You’re a bit scary, you know that.”

She looked up at me with concern on her face. “Really?”

Yeah, I couldn’t say she was with that face looking at me. “You’re cuter now,” I said instead. “You don’t sound like a lawyer giving a speech.”

She smiled at me, which was then interrupted by a yawn.

“I think you need to join Maggie,” I said. “She’s sleeping down the hall.”

Ivy nodded. “In the morning, we can color,” she said. “Jared bought me a new box of crayons as an apology for coming out this late.”

“And I’ll make you French Toast for breakfast,” I said. “I bet you like that.”

She nodded. “You know it’s my favorite.”

Well, I did now. And my headache wasn’t too bad, either. Maybe I could survive this.


	9. Chapter 9

Marcone was the one who came up with the answer – or maybe it was Hendricks, whatever – but the idea, they told me, was like a restore point on a computer. I had no idea what a restore point was, but it seemed to me like it was treading awfully close to time-travel.

So I modified it a bit, taking care to consider who would be present and who Bob was willing to reveal himself to, and how close I was willing to let someone come to my mind and to treading the line of the laws.

The ritual was complex, but on the base level it was simple. Bob would look in a mirror that reflected me – except that the mirror wouldn’t show me as I was without my memories, but as I had been with them. Then three others would work at Bob’s direction to “restore” my aura to how it was in the mirror. One more would keep their focus on the mirror so that the image of my self wouldn’t waver, or change. Two would keep me grounded, focused, so that whatever changes came I would have the power to accept or deny. I could always halt things if I was focused; if I wasn’t I might not realize a change had gone too far until it was too late. Two would be needed to hold the circle, so that my magic didn’t lash out and hurt someone, and so that no magic suddenly leaped in and hurt _me_.

Nine people. Nine years. Eb, when I managed to get a call through, had confirmed that the spell was a fair hand for physical wounds, but was tricky at best – and no one had tried it for what I was describing. I had apparently gotten myself into a “right mess,” and when he finished doing one thing or another that I might remember (or not) later, he would come and straighten me out as best he could.

The best thing about this spell was that not all of the people had to be people with raw magical talent, and not all of them had to be people I trusted. Bob had agreed to spend the time “riding” one of Marcone’s men, so that when someone with talent saw him they wouldn’t immediately know who was. If they started to look deeper, he would return to his skull until I called him. The man in question, I decided, would be Cujo. He knew enough already, and no doubt Marcone shared everything with his pet monkey.

Maybe even me.

The thought hit me like a bolt out of the blue, but I realized almost immediately that it didn’t feel _quite_ right. He hadn’t shared me – but had he wanted to? Had I wanted to? Had it been one of Bob’s pranks?

“Boss?” Bob asked. “You there?”

“Yeah,” I said, shaking my head a bit to rid myself of the thoughts. “You’re riding Cujo. Michael and two others work to make me myself again. Murphy knows me best, so she’s going to be the one projecting me onto the mirror. Molly and someone else keep me focused. Two others hold the circle. Marcone’s going to want to be a part of this as well.”

“And Maggie. You should include the tyke.”

“No,” I growled. “Not happening.”

“Then use Thomas as the other focus.”

“The vampire?” Why would I want a vampire as my focus? Why would I even include him in the spell? I was writing his name down confidently, but I still turned to Bob and asked: “Why?”

He rattled a bit. “I don’t think I’m supposed to tell you, but you didn’t expressly forbid it…” he said, stalling, then did a curious thing. The orange orbs that marked Bob’s presence rotated, as if checking out the room for anything that might be listening or watching – but he knew there wasn’t, because he wouldn’t be talking to me if there were.

“Don’t go blabbing or telling or making a huge deal out of this,” he rattled, still watching the shadows, “and you owe me porn for a month - _good_ porn, and a few good romances as well, maybe even a show.”

“I haven’t given you a show since I was sixteen,” I grumbled, “and _that_ was an accident!”

Bob gave me such a look, I could almost bet his “spirit of air and intellect” was spiriting away my clothes, and I tugged them tighter as he huskily said: “And what a good show it was, too. So very young, all that potential, willing to do anything – you were much more interesting when you were figuring out how to get off.”

“Yes, well, that’s the past,” I said. “We were talking about Thomas.”

“You promise me the good porn? For a month?”

“A week.”

“Three.”

“Two – or none at all. You know how embarrassing it is to buy that?”

“You could always claim it’s for your husband.”

“Bob,” I sighed. “Two weeks. Now tell me.”

“Fine. He’s your brother.”

I patiently waited for the rest of his explanation. Then I realized there wasn’t any more. “Wait – you mean - _brother_? As in share the same parents?”

“Well, technically only one, and that was your mother, but the concept is right.”

My brother was a white court vampire? “Did someone other than me threaten you with a mallet recently?”

“No,” Bob grumbled. “Do a spell, if you want, see what it tells you. But don’t ask anyone because they don’t know. It’s not – it’s not safe knowledge. There’s a reason your mother didn’t tell your father she was already a mother. There’s a reason you don’t tell others.”

“What do I tell others, then?”

“That he’s your boyfriend.”

“So I’m married to a mafia crimelord while dating a sex vampire?”

Bob rolled his eyes. “Okay, okay. Ex-boyfriend. But he had some wild times in your old apartment.”

“I – I don’t want to know,” I decided. “I’ll call him if I need him. Until then, I’m going to ask for a few favors.”

Hopefully Morgan wouldn’t kill me on sight.


	10. Chapter 10

I woke up on a soft bed, without the feel of John behind me and without the feel of his breath ghosting across my neck. For a moment I lazed there and wondered just what “business” had kept John out all night again – if he was chasing drug dealers again without warning me first, I was going to be pissed – and that was when things slowly started to seep back into me.

The potion. The side effects.

The memory loss and the panic. The need.

I wanted him by me again, and I wanted the familiar feel of his arms around me. Rearranging my memory hadn’t erased that need, I simply hadn’t been able to recognize it. Looking back now, it was easy to see how I had equated lust with the need to be held. At that moment in time, a sexual relationship had been the only place I had experienced such feelings – excluding my father, which was as much a distant and fading memory now as it had been then.

I got up and went to look for my husband. It didn’t take me long to find him.

“Good morning, beautiful,” I said, wrapping my arms around his shoulders and dropping a kiss to his temple. He sat as his desk, working on some paperwork I didn’t look at – it was easier that way, always. If he wanted to share, he would – and if I wanted to ask, he would tell. But we’d found we had fewer arguments when we saved them for the important things.

He grasped my hands almost too tightly, and let out a shaky breath. “I wasn’t sure you’d wake up… as you,” he said.

“I am so sorry,” I told him sincerely. I didn’t tell him that things weren’t exactly complete – I’d never trust anyone that heavily with my mind – but I had enough. More than enough. The rest would come with time.

“What were you hoping to accomplish?”

I moved around him, scooted the papers away neatly, and sat on his desk, pulling his rolling chair up between my legs. “It was meant to be something to help search memories,” I told him. “I was aware it might damage a few memories in the process for a short period of time. I was not aware of how severely it would do so – or that it would be anywhere near permanent.”

“You sound stressed.”

“I – made a few promised favors over the years, some with the fae. I have since repaid those favors, but it would be like my Godmother or Mab to overlook that fact and demand them again. If I didn’t remember repaying them… I might have done something I would later regret.” There was no way to prove I’d repaid them; no one had witnessed my interactions with them. All I had to go on were my memories and theirs.

There were other things too – Lash, who hadn’t been prodding at me in any noticeable way in my vulnerable state, but it’s been a long time since I’ve heard even a whisper of her in my mind. She has, to the best of my knowledge, left; it’s not often that I go searching, however. There were traces of what Justin had done as well, adding a touch of edginess and mistrust to things. But also adding that edge where I didn’t _need_ to trust as much, and that was almost as scary.

It was a bit of a revelation of how much my subconscious dealt with every day. And I hadn’t even noticed. Feeling sorry for the guy, though, meant feeling sorry for me – and I couldn’t do that.

“Harry?”

I shook myself out of my thoughts. “Sorry. Come to bed?”

“I won’t-“

“Not to play,” I said, rolling my eyes. “Spend a lazy day in bed with me, snuggled warm under the covers while Maggie plays with some of the dewdrop faeries and Hendricks pretends we’re not at home.”

He eyed me critically, and then a smile blossomed on his face. Slow and steady, but certain again. “Of course.”

We did spend a lazy day in bed, snuggled under the covers, sometimes playing “fort” with Maggie between us as she giggled and hid from stuffed animal monsters. Maggie curled up in my arms while John recited poetry and read “The Princess Bride” for what seemed like the billionth time (one hundred and thirteen, not that I was counting). Roberts delivered pizza for the little fae and Maggie, while Hendricks carried in a steak for Mouse and spaghetti for John and me. It was a wonderful day.

And if it ended with me and John in a less than decent position with the door locked, well, that’s a secret I’m not going to tell.

I did find what I was looking for though. After the almost-fight Thomas and I had had, I'd been hurt and the potion had seemed like a good idea, but in truth I hadn’t needed it. I hadn’t needed to go back nine years – back to the beginning of John and I. All I needed to do was look around me, at what John did for me and Maggie – what I did for him and what she did for us, and what mattered in the end. If Thomas couldn't see it, he was being deliberately blind. Even just this one day was enough to tell me what I wanted to know.

The answer had been right in front of me the entire time – all I had to do was ask for it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally, finally, this ends. My apologies for skipping both the ritual and any possible sexytimes, but the sexytimes refused to happen and the ritual - let's just say I'm not very good at that sort of thing.
> 
> I might (stressed: MIGHT) go back and write the scene with Thomas that spurred all this, but only if there's interest and Harry's being nice to me when I try. :p
> 
> I hope you enjoyed!


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